9 Conclusion

The Future Remains Open

The environment of 40 years from now will be what we make it. We have both
the technology to blow the planet apart and the wisdom to cultivate it into a
polycultural garden complete with wilderness areas. The carrying capacity of
"Spaceship Earth" is not unlimited, but it is elastic. This elasticity
depends on consumption models, spatial configurations, technology, and
institutional and cultural factors in the broadest sense of these terms. Social
and cultural limits must take precedence over physical limits, at least for the
decades to come.

The dashed hopes of the Stockholm Conference demonstrate the danger of drift,
in which attention is focused on environmental discourse rather than on the
redefinition of development strategies; sensitivity towards nature often emerges
only after it has been destroyed. Have we already reached this stage? Is the
massacre to go on?

Whether we admit it or not, the responsibility of our generation is enormous
(Brown Weiss 1989). We are shaping not only our future, but that of our children
and their children (without even speaking of the other species with which we
share this earth). We will be judged by our ability to question our development
patterns (and ourselves) and thus our ability to break with the dominant model
in the West, the East, and the South. What can we do in these circumstances,
here and now?

First of all, we can clarify the stakes of development, the margins of
freedom, and the constraints which exist locally in a variety of forms.
Understanding these factors is clearly the first step towards action.

Our capacity for analysis, combining all factors - ecological, cultural,
institutional, personal, and socio-economic - remains limited. For that reason,
we must envisage a training effort tackling educational programmes at all levels
and in all channels. Multi-disciplinarity is not achieved through the
juxtaposition of narrow-minded specialists; it entails an open-mindedness to
dialogue on the part of all individuals, professionals and citizens alike.

Prominent among the necessary educational aids is an ecological history of
humanity, conceived as a systematic exploration of the ecosystem/culture
interrelationship and revolving around the themes of food production, housing,
energy, and so on. Such a history would make it possible to assess the
adaptability of a culture to the various natural environments or, to put it the
other way around, to compare the ingenuity of the various cultures in overcoming
constraints and seizing opportunities within a particular ecosystem. The concept
of "resourcefulness" is at the heart of the development process.

While a sound knowledge of history will stimulate the failing social
imagination (by giving it guidance and, at the same time, by identifying
anti-models to be avoided), the concept of new production systems meeting the
triple criteria of social equity, ecological sustainability, and economic
viability will benefit from being viewed in terms of the natural ecosystem,
emphasis being placed on the complementarities between the various productions.

The exploitation of natural resources under ecologically viable conditions
(the economy of permanence, as Gandhi called it) is by far the most effective
and durable form of environmental protection and elimination of
"raubwirschaft". This is why the programmes described above warrant a
priority that has so far been denied by international organizations.

Such organizations clearly have a responsibility to deal with the
"international commons". But progress in this field, if any, is
terribly slow despite the magnitude of the stakes. While the establishment of
supranational bodies endowed with genuine decision-making and managerial power
seems to be out of the question for the time being, there remains the method of
agreement. It would be strengthened if international efforts could at least
count on automatic financing. Various such proposals were made in the wake of
the Stockholm Conference (Steinberg and Yager 1978), but there has been very
little acceptance of this idea to date.

Yet only international taxation, however modest, would give the United
Nations and other organizations the financial autonomy that is absolutely
necessary to elude the pressures of the great powers who are also the principal
donors. In the Middle Ages, the Church levied the tithe. The United Nations
would certainly be content with a tithe of a tithe of a tithe of the gross world
product, which now exceeds US$10 trillion. A world-wide tax of US$1 per million
(graduated in such a way that the rich countries would pay more and the poor
would be exempt) would bring in US$10 billion. This is ten times more than the
current annual budget of the United Nations!

In concluding, it should be emphasized that good work is in progress but much
more needs to be done. There is, in particular, a great need for more systematic
analysis of patterns of resource use in diverse ecosystems and forms of human
adaptation to given natural settings that can show the diverse ways in which
people manage to overcome the constraints of their environment and identify
opportunities for a better life.

Let us hope that the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development will accelerate political and economic movement in this direction -
as time is no longer on our side.

Each generation modifies its historical accounts, whether they be written or
oral. Ours should be recording the ecological history of humanity in order to
ensure its
future.